Any character that looms as large in the public imagination as Fifty Shades of Grey‘s Christian Grey is going to be intensely scrutinized when he makes the jump to the screen. Fans had strong opinions last year when Jamie Dornan was chosen to play him in the film, and we’re sure they’ll have many more today as the first image of Dornan as Grey is released. Get your first look at Fifty Shades of Grey after the jump.

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High school movie reunions are recurring theme in today’s Sequel Bits. Zac Efron and Lindsay Lohan tease High School Musical and Mean Girls reunions, respectively, while Kristen Bell discusses a potential Veronica Mars sequel. Also after the jump:

That’s a glimpse, above, at the first official look at Christian Grey in the film adaptation of the novel Fifty Shades of Grey. The movie is now under way with Sam Taylor-Johnson directing Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, respectively. Film MusicReporter recently reported that Danny Elfman will do the score, which could add a tone of odd pleasure (ahem) to the picture.

See the full image below. It doesn’t really portend much on the sexual front, but there are some quotes for that angle, too. Read More »

What a year 2013 has been for movie news. Fox, DC, and Marvel all dropped huge announcements about their respective comic book franchises, Lucasfilm passed the Star Wars mantle to J.J. Abrams, and Jurassic Park 4 finally picked up steam after years of false starts — all as the YA adaptations, Biblical epics, and live-action fairy tales continued to pile up.

But if you’re curious about the biggest things to come out of 2013, our list of the 15 most popular posts ought to help. As it happens, they also shed some light on you, our readers. Click the jump to see what the top posts of the year were, and what they may or may not tell us about all of you.

Lars von Trier’s plan to release hardcore and softcore versions of Nymphomaniacdidn’t go quite as planned, but now another developing project has glommed onto a similar idea.

Producer Dana Brunetti recently revealed that he hopes to put out two edits of Fifty Shades of Grey: an R-rated one for more general audiences, followed by an NC-17 edit for the more hardcore fans. Hit the jump for more details on his thoughts on how that might work.

Charlie Hunnam’s sudden departure from Fifty Shades of Grey sparked rumors that the erotic romance might not be able to make its planned summer 2014 release date. And now, it has indeed been pushed back to Valentine’s Day 2015 — but not, Universal insists, because of the casting change. Or not just because of it, anyway.

Fortunately for disappointed fans, Universal is taking advantage of that six-month delay to get the hype machine started nice and early. The first pics of stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson in character have just hit the web. Read more about the delay and soak in the new images after the jump.

Charlie Hunnam reportedly exited Fifty Shades of Grey after he got a little too hands-on with the script, but now Sam Taylor-Johnson and her producers have found a new scribe to wrestle it into submission. Mark Bomback, writer of The Wolverine and the Total Recall remake, has been hired to do a polish on Kelly Marcel‘s screenplay.

Meanwhile, though the producers were able to get back on track pretty quickly after Hunnam’s departure, they’re still feeling the consequences. The start date has been delayed by one month, throwing the planned summer opening into doubt. Hit the jump to get the latest updates on the project, or just to skip ahead to the comments so you can preemptively hate on it.

Briefly: Does anyone care who plays any of the other characters in Fifty Shades of Grey? We’re about to find out, as the first bit of casting for the films that doesn’t involve one of the two leads has been announced. Dakota Johnson is cast as Anastasia Steele, and Jamie Dornan is stepping in to play Christian Grey after Charlie Hunnam bailed on the role. But as for the roles that aren’t involved in all the sex and bondage? Let’s see what happens.

Luke Grimes (True Blood) will join the cast of the Fifty Shades of Grey adaptation as Christian Grey’s brother, Elliot. Variety announces the casting and notes that some other big roles are yet to be cast; Grey also has a bodyguard, for instance, and that role is going to be huge for some poor sap.

Less than two weeks after Charlie Hunnam dropped out of Fifty Shades of Grey, the Sam Taylor-Johnson-directed romance has found a new leading man. Irish actor Jamie Dornan has just been cast in the lead role of Christian Grey, the billionaire playboy with a BDSM fetish. Dakota Johnson remains attached as the object of his affections, naive college student Anastasia Steele. More details after the jump.